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Category Archives: Drax files radio hour

The positive SL article, Wagner Au’s story, the public response and the finale on The Drax Files Radio Hour

15 Friday May 2015

Posted by Jo Yardley in Drax files radio hour, SL in the media, SL's reputation

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

"second life", atlas obscura, decency, drax files radio, eric grundhauser, media, morals, new world notes, values, virtual reality, Wagner James Au

How is that title for click bait?

Recently a journalist who wanted to write about Second Life did the right thing, he asked for help.

As soon as reporter Eric Grundhauser realised how massive our virtual world was and how impossible it would be to write a proper article about it without exploring it for many days, he reached out to Linden Lab and asked for a guide.
Linden Lab pointed him in the direction of one of the best guides  imaginable, Ziki Questi.

She showed him some of SL’s most impressive sims (but forgetting the best one, mine ;)) and the result is a rather nice, positive article about Second Life.
One to counter all those negative stories with.
But he didn’t forget to mention the more adult side, luckily, unlike with most media, it was not the main focus of his story.

The story was published on a website called ‘Atlas Obscura‘, “the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places.”, as they describe themselves.
So not a tech website, not a blog about games or virtual reality, but more like a travel guide for those interested in the unusual.
It is very interesting that they choose to publish a story about a virtual destination, I like that a lot.

Make sure you read it, you can find it by clicking here.

But a few days later Wagner James Au on his website ‘New World Notes’, wrote an article about the Atlas Obscura article that was rather surprising to many.
He felt that the adult side of Second Life, ugly outdated sims and things such as lag, old graphics, etc. did not get enough attention and that the article thus “presents a distorted picture of Second Life that ultimately does a disservice to SL and its best creators, while doing nothing to help grow its userbase.”

You can read his entire article by clicking here, make sure you also read the comments below it.

Unsurprisingly many Second Life users were confused, annoyed and angry about his story.
Finally the media writes something positive about our virtual world and now this.

Honour McMillan wrote an interesting reply to Wagner’s story here on her blog and of course there was lots of talking about the subject on Twitter and plurk.

So Drax and I decided to invite Hamlet to our little attic studio in Berlin (AKA Skype) and interviewed him.
I think the result is rather interesting, an edited (for time) version will be part of the Drax Files Radio Hour to go online this Friday and we will also put the complete unedited interview online.

I personally think that just because sims are catagorised as adult, they don’t necessarily are ‘rated Adult for extreme sexual and violent content’.
Interestingly enough yesterday Linden Lab organised a ‘Inworld Linden meet up’ in the adult themed (stunningly wonderful) sim Basilique Town… where public nudity or even (wearing or walking around in?) underwear is not allowed!
And although the place has a few corners here and there where the rules are more relaxed and hanky panky probably goes on somewhere, these areas are for members only.
So their rating as adult may be legitimate, I definitely wouldn’t call it a sex sim, if it was, I wouldn’t even dare visit it, Lindens or no Lindens.

Then again, my rating system would be even worse, I’m such an old fashioned prude, I’d probably rate 99% of SL as perverted.
I mean some women walk around with skirts that don’t cover their knees!

I also think that a lot has to do with the words you use.
For instance Hamlet says Second Life is dying, I’d prefer to say it is declining or even better; evolving into the Next Generation virtual world that Linden Lab is working on now.

Anyway, I’ll leave the rest of my opinions to the interview we did with Wagner, a link to our podcast will be shared here on this blog, and on of course on the Draxfiles website as soon as the show is online.

atlas obscura

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New Drax files Radio Hour; show #54: freedom

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by Jo Yardley in Drax files radio hour

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show #54: freedom.

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show #52: sl looks good today!

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by Jo Yardley in Drax files radio hour

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Make sure you listen to the latest Drax Files radio hour with me!

show #52: sl looks good today!.

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Drax files Radio Hour show #21

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by Jo Yardley in Drax files radio hour

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Listen to the Drax Files Radio Hour that I co host together with Draxtor Despres, all about Second Life, the Oculus Rift, the Metaverse and much more;

show #21: svvr [part 2: lindens with goggles].

via show #21: svvr [part 2: lindens with goggles].

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Amazing video about past, present and future of Virtual Reality

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Jo Yardley in Drax files radio hour, Virtual reality

≈ 4 Comments

It has been announced and discussed in the Drax Files Radio Hour with Jo Yardley and I am happy to say that this video is now online.

I hope you all go and watch it and share it with everyone you know, people who are not into VR or Second Life but also those who are, especially if they are Linden Lab employees, or if they work for Oculus Rift, Leap Motion, Virtuix Omni or any other kind of company involved in this type of business.
Many of these people need a little reminder regarding the full potential of Second Life, yes that includes some Linden Lab employees.
But the video will also remind them of how far we’ve come.

We have an amazing virtual world here and although many think we’re part of the past, I reckon we’ve only just begun.

This excellent video was made by Loki Eliot who is a well known creator in Second Life.

It shows us the past, present and future of Virtual Reality.

A lovely walk down memory lane that will make you get all excited (again) about what VR is all about and where it is going at the moment.

But as I said, it is also just an excellent documentary about VR in general.

More about the creator and his video here on Loki Eliot’s blog.

Draxtor presents Loki Eliot’s “The LOST Virtual World”
A collection of videos telling the story of a virtual world, how a community embraced it and the media forgot about it.
Behold: a mash-up of interviews and documentary clips from the last 20 years about the phenomenon of virtual reality, its trials, tribulations and media mis-interpretations, all feeding social and political agendas of various stripes, juxtaposed with excerpts of a popular fictional TV show about passengers stranded on a mysterious island [no NOT Giligan’s!] – 30+ minutes, edited by 3D artist Loki Eliot.
A wonderful look at all sides of the debate about reality, the future of the human race and how to proceed, sandwiched between wide-eyed cyber utopianism and dire warnings of the end of reality as we know it.
With its inclusion of recent interviews with Oculus Rift inventor Palmer Luckey and early idealistic statements by Second Life founder Philip Rosedale this clip-show gives a great overview of the current debate and may even enthuse some of VR’s disillusioned early adopters…
Clips used include statements by
Robin Harper
David Fleck
Rick Kim
Philip Rosedale
Palmer Luckey
Steve Ballmer
Andrew Keen
Louis CK
Rod Humble
Fran Seranade
and
various elected US congress persons
Clips from ABC’s “LOST” copyright ABC Television, used under fair use guidelines.

12117974696_d0205f0393_b

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Drax Files Radio Show with Jo Yardley, episode 3: Esteban Winsmore invades!

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Jo Yardley in Drax files radio hour

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The third episode of our podcast ‘The Drax Files Radio Show with Jo Yardley’ is NOW online!

It has lots of interesting subjects and also an interview with infamous griever Esteban Winsmore!

You can enjoy the show here;

http://draxfiles.com/2014/01/24/show3_esteban/

We also show a really great documentary made by Loki Eliot, more about that in my other blogpost that you can read by clicking here.

tdf-rh-show-3

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The Drax Files Radio Hour with Jo Yardley going live tomorrow!

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Jo Yardley in Drax files radio hour

≈ 1 Comment

Today we recorded the first episode of ‘The Drax Files Radio Hour with Jo Yardley’.

Draxtor Despres and I discussed some of the current news stories regarding Second Life and virtual reality in general, listen to a few items and interviews and generally chat about what’s going on in our online world.

We recorded the episode from a tiny attic in 1920s Berlin and had a good time.

Although we are very enthusiastic about our Second Lives, it won’t be an hour of us telling everyone how great SL is.

We will be critical as well and of course our guests won’t hide their opinions either.

But there is no denying that we are both excited about the potential virtual reality has.

Most importantly, we are “extreme users” of SL, Drax makes his machinima, I run a busy role playing community.

We both spend a lot of time inworld and have done so for a couple of years.

This will be a weekly show and we’re always looking for new guests.

So please let us know if you’re interested in chatting to us or if you think someone you know might be an interesting guest.

We’re looking for musicians, people who have only just started their Second Life, people who have been in SL since the dawn of time, movers, shakers, creators, etc.

The first episode will go live January 10th, 7am SLT.

There will be several ways to listen to it, you’ll find out more on the official Drax Files Radio Hour website;

http://draxfiles.com/

And our facebook page;

https://www.facebook.com/draxfilesradiohour

I hope you enjoy the show, let me know what you think!

Image

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